The Dark

Bringing John McGaherns 1965 masterpiece back into print in the United States after years of inaccessibility, this new sixtieth-anniversary critical edition includes an introduction aimed at first-time readers, explanatory footnotes, McGaherns own glossary, and four scholarly essays aimed at guiding readers through the novels famously controversial history. While the text was initially banned in Ireland for obscenity, this edition demonstrates that McGaherns novel of adolescence is not obscene, but revelatory, exposing the corruption underlying authority structures in mid-century Irelandfrom the family to the church, to the governments willingness to ignore national and communal trauma. The Dark follows a promising young boys struggles to break free from the economic and social forces trapping him in a lifestyle that is both familiar and suffocating. At the heart of the novel is the boys complex and stormy relationship with his abusive, widowed father, who is left to raise a family with little outside aid. The Dark is a story of alarming brutality, surprising tenderness, and poetic lyricism; a reflection of Irish society that maintains historical significance as contemporary Ireland continues to build its national identity.